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Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

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Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#61

Post by protomyth »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #49
clarkmoody wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDR tried lots of thing that had the opposite of the intended effect. Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional re…

This is the most detailed rebuke I have seen yet. Thank you for adding this to the conversation. My weasley counterpoint is to say that FDR ultimately made more right moves than wrong, and he did not become, as he feared, "the last president". Economic manipulation aside, his public works initiatives like the Tennessee valley authority gave people good work when there was none, and strengthened our national infrastru…

> The common conclusion is that the only real cure for the Great Depression was World War II

Probably the common conclusion, but I think 1946-1948 congressional action had quite a bit to do with the the baby boom years. Its an interesting era to read up on.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#62

Post by jerf »

aswanson wrote: post #52
nitrogen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that shifting power to the states will solve many problems; after all it's the states that want to force Christianity on students, ban the teaching of science, deny healthcare to those most in need of it, lower standards for students so many HS grads are still illiterate, defund universities, and hand monopolies to oil, mineral, and telecom companies.

On top of that, the states horrifically manage what should be simple agencies such as the dmv.

As with my other reply... do you somehow imagine that all Federal agencies are wonderfully and wisely managed? By what mental gymnastics are you maintaining that belief? Have you ever been critical of Homeland Security? Ever thought our government was too responsive to concerns about terrorists? Ever thought they were responding to climate change incorrectly? Think Obamacare is not everything it should be?

Nobody really believes in the existence of this Federal government that you and nitrogen are hypothesizing for solely rhetorical reasons. It's just an argument picked up briefly to advocate for more government, then discarded in the next moment, because you're not willing to live by the rest of its implications (namely, that where you and the Federal government disagree, the Federal government must be correct; if you are not willing to say that clearly, this argument falls apart). It is not rational to compare real state governments to hypothetical federal governments.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#63

Post by mixmastamyk »

mywittyname wrote: post #50
xlm1717 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the most frustrating part is that despite our hyperconnectedness, people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression or that our leaders got us out of the recession. Future economists will call the decade the "longest depression" not out of 20/20 hindsight, but simply because there will no longer be a need to make things seem rosy.

The propaganda is the statement that we are in a depression. We are NOT in a depression, nor a recession and have not been for several years. So, in fact, historians will not at all call this period a depression. More likely, they will look back and wonder why so many people thought things were bad when, by all objective measurements, things were actually quite good. Low inflation, low commodities prices, decent wage…

> decent wage growth, cheap housing

These are not the case in California, where the opposite is unfortunately true.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#64

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

gshubert17 wrote: post #55
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State and local levels are the only places where there can be any real experimental reform. Just look at Colorado and the other states that have legalized marijuana by referendum. Direct democracy isn't necessarily better than elected representation, but politicians are motivated by the necessity of power, and so whoever controls the politicians controls the political process. People shouldn't be left up to decide ev…

And businesses in the now legal marijuana business in Colorado are having problems getting into the federalized banking system because marijuana is illegal federally and banking powers have been centralized.

Growing pains. Problems aside it does show that there is a sizable market and the health effects have not panned out to rot the state from the inside out, as drug scaremongers have sworn would happen for decades and decades.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#65

Post by Amezarak »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #49
clarkmoody wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDR tried lots of thing that had the opposite of the intended effect. Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional re…

This is the most detailed rebuke I have seen yet. Thank you for adding this to the conversation. My weasley counterpoint is to say that FDR ultimately made more right moves than wrong, and he did not become, as he feared, "the last president". Economic manipulation aside, his public works initiatives like the Tennessee valley authority gave people good work when there was none, and strengthened our national infrastru…

http://economics-charts.com/gdp/gdp-1929-2004.html#table

The New Deal had already kickstarted the economy by the time WWII rolled around - although obviously WWII served as an even larger public works and employment program. (The government did, however, have wage and price controls for many decades after the Great Depression.)

As you can see in the chart, GDP had already doubled by 1941, returning to pre-Depression levels, with New Deal programs beginning in 1933. You can see that WWII again nearly doubled GDP from 1941 to 1945.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#66

Post by roymurdock »

someguydave wrote: post #57
roymurdock wrote: post #48

This is a terrible article. It strikes me as too technical to do anything but anger the casual reader (see the article's comment section for examples) and too vague to say anything meaningful to the informed reader. The only new information presented here is the professor's (extremely late) admission that his strict adherence to a misguided school of theoretical economics that no longer applied in the face of structu…

> Older voters would destroy any candidate who would even suggest such a thing, as they very well should. They contributed what the gov said was their fair share, they expect to be paid back in their old age. So people have a moral ('fair' is a moral judgement word) right to unbounded medical services because some politician told them in the past that they could have things without paying for them? Would it be 'fair'…

I'm 23. Do I think paying 50% of our budget on medicare and social security is sustainable? No. Personally, I believe it to be completely unsustainable given the lower birthrates, higher medical costs, higher levels of chronic disease and obesity, much higher life expectancies.

Can I empathize with someone who paid into these programs with years of hard work and is expecting the "fair" payout they were promised? Yes.

Am I making a value judgement of what is truly "fair"? No. That's completely subjective and can be argued in favor of either side.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#67

Post by jerf »

hwstar wrote: post #56
jerf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more in the increasing centralization of power. The central power is bigger and thus harder to move by sheer inertia, more risk-averse, and also more able to simply implement whatever it likes regardless of what anybody else thinks because it is isolate from the trenches. I think one of the top-3 issues facing the US right now is we need a lot more power devolved back to the states... not out of a "state…

The things that are broken can't be solved by the states. The patchwork of state laws would become a great hinderance. The federal government is corrupt and needs to be reformed. We need campaign finance reform, and the ability to recall federally elected officials.

If diversity is real, then the things that are broken can't be solved by the central authority practically.

Is there not real diversity? Are there not legitimately different cultures in different parts of the country? Do these cultures not call for different solutions?

You really can't have both of a political culture of "celebrating diversity" and "one-size-fit-all from Washington DC solutions".

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#68

Post by venomsnake »

dcd0101 wrote: post #45
venomsnake wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. If you look at the bottom 90% and their economy - we are in depression. Or extremely deep recession. The top 10% are both capturing the lion's share of new growth and siphoning wealth from the rest.

No. It doesn't depend. As he said, those words have actual definitions.

Yeah but USA is having two economies right now that are masked as one in statistics.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#69

Post by ch4s3 »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #51
rm999 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not common sense to freely experiment with policy unless you're trying to sell a controversial progressive agenda (like, FDR in 1933). And I say this as a progressive who supports much of what he did. Applying sweeping changes is difficult and costly, and undoing them is even harder. For example, farm subsidies, which are generally unpopular, were put into place by FDR and just can't seem to go away. Fundamental…

>farm subsidies The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff, which people might think is inefficient but probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, these sorts of subsidies should increase supply and lower prices. The reality is there's a tangled web of price controls, subsidies, import q…

Yeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. It a classic protectionist policy. Since HFCS and sugar are basically perfect substitutes, and the price of HFCS is so low it hardly seems to matter to consumers.

Its also a stupid policy.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#70

Post by CaptSpify »

bmm6o wrote: post #59
CaptSpify wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression Is there a source for this? Everyone I know believes that we still are in a depression, so it's probably just my social circles. I'd be interested to see the stats behind that.

What is the basis for everyone you know believing this? "Depression" has an objective definition that objectively doesn't currently hold. Do they not believe the reported numbers of the GDP, or are they using their own incorrect definition of the term?

Disclaimer: I am not an economist. Some of their discussions go well above my head, so it's possible I'm mis-understanding\mis-interpreting what they say. This is also why I'm curious as to a source.

The one thing I hear a lot is: The statistics we are using to measure this are BS. One example: We don't account for people who are under-employed, which is important to note in long-term depressions such as this one. The other things I typically hear are quite anecdotal: "I have family in Rnowheresville, $some_state, and they have no jobs out there!"

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